Inserting machines with multi-feeder stations are widely utilized for mailing applications in which a plurality of different types of enclosures, such as account related documents, advertising enclosures or documents of general interest, are to be included with a customer's monthly statement. Examples of such applications are monthly statements mailed by utilities, credit card companies, and banking or other financial institutions. Included, typically, with the statement are one or more enclosures, or inserts, which may convey a message to the customers, such as an offer for additional services, a change in policy, or advertisements provided by third parties for inclusion within the monthly statement. Illustrative of such insertion machines are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,547,856, 4,077,181 and 3,935,429 which are assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
Early applications for inserting machines required that the insertion function be performed in accordance with a predetermined scheme that was fixed for each mailpiece being assembled. For example, in addition to the required statement and other required documents which must be inserted, such as paid bank checks, the inserting machines also insert a pre-specified number of enclosures. The pre-specified number may be programmed into the inserting machine or may be read from a control code printed on one of the required documents.
Although the inserting machines were well suited for such early applications, the market requirements evolved to demand inserting machines capable of making last minute decisions regarding which enclosures are to be included in a mailpiece and a required amount of postage for the mailpiece with the enclosures.
An application where this capability may prove especially advantageous concerns bank checking accounts wherein a variable number of documents expressive of a customer's monthly statement, a variable number of cancelled checks, and possibly one or more inserts of a general or advertising nature are required to be mailed. Due at least to the variation of the number of statement pages and cancelled checks between customers, the required postage for mailpieces produced will consequently vary over a wide range of postage values.
As is well known, the present postage rate categories for first-class letter mail are ultimately based on a final, total weight of a mailpiece. Therefore, any procedure for determining the correct amount of postage for a mailpiece must involve at some point in the procedure a weight-determining step.
The original way for performing such a weight-determining step comprised weighing the stuffed envelope. However, as inserting machine throughputs increased this technique of weighing each mailpiece became less practical, more complex and, hence, more expensive for the customer. Furthermore, such a weighing did not lend itself to supporting other advancements in inserting machine technology, such as a dynamic selection of inserts based on priority levels and/or the "topping off" of a mailpiece with additional inserts to take full advantage of a monetary value of a postage category for the mailpiece.
An alternate method to weighing a stuffed envelope is known to provide an inserting machine with a predetermined per item weight of the inserts held at each of a plurality of feeding stations and to store such per item weights in a data processing memory. A processing means, using the stored per item weights, calculates a total weight of each mailpiece based on the number of inserts selectively fed from the feeding stations. This calculated weight is then utilized to determine the postage category of the mailpiece. Thus, the inserting machine determines which one of a plurality of postage meters, each being set to apply postage relating to a different weight category, will be subsequently activated to apply postage to the mailpiece. Such a machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,571,925 issued to Jerryl Adams. Once a postage category has been determined, it is known to utilize the calculated per item weight of the optional inserts in "topping off" a mailpiece by selectively feeding optional enclosures into a mailpiece without exceeding the postage category. Such a method is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,639,873 and 4,797,830 issued to Baggarly et al. An alternate method of "topping off" is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,493 issue to David Pintsoy.
Although a "topping off" method may improve the value of the mailpiece, it does not necessarily achieve full value benefit of the postage category into which the mailpiece falls. Nor does "topping off" address a problem of the selection of enclosures for inserting based on criteria other than weight, such as demographic or other characteristics of the addressee. A method of prioritizing inserts based on criteria other than weight is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,817,042 issued to Leon Pintsoy. This method includes a final postage category determination based on the priority of the inserts which are selected for insertion into the mailpiece.
Thus, the multi-feeder station inserting machines have been utilized for applications which require the inserting machine to make intelligent decisions regarding which enclosures are to be included in a mailpiece. Usually these intelligent decisions are made during mailpiece assembly process and are based solely on the expected postage expense, i.e., cost, required for every mailpiece.
For every mailpiece to be assembled by the inserting machine there is a multiplicity of enclosures which fall into two general categories: 1) enclosures which must be included the mailpiece without any reservations, and 2) optional enclosures which may or may not be included.
Enclosures of the first category are usually financial statements, bills, checks and other personalized enclosures which constitute the mandatory content of the message being sent. These enclosures have a cost aspect associated with them which in the context of the present invention is the postage. This is the postage which would have to be paid based on the weight and the level of postal worksharing (presort and prebarcoding) associated with every given mailpiece. This postage also represents the minimal postage which would have to be paid for a given mailpiece.
Enclosures of the second category are usually of advertising or informational nature, which are included or not included into a given mailpiece depending on the potential increase in the postage cost which would have to be incurred, as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,817,042, or only when no increase in postage would occur, as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,873. The selection of the best alternative is based either on the total allowed increase in postage and after that the maximal number of enclosures (U.S. Pat. No. 4,817,042) or just a maximal number of enclosures without increase in postage (U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,873). In arriving at the decision inserting machines known in the prior art do not consider a total plurality of possible alternatives but rather sequentially evaluate enclosures for inclusion.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for the selection of optional inserts whereby the optimal value, i.e., benefit, of each mailpiece is fully realized.